Im seafarer myself and just yesterday finished annual course of training videos and tests. And damn man I'd love if they hired you to make those training videos, because 99% of them so boring and poorly made that its just torture to watch. Love your content, keep it going.
I have had the same thought, but with technology. I can watch youtube videos about technology and it's interesting to learn, then when I need to learn about it at work I get a 150 slide power point deck from some engineer I'm expected to read in excruciating detail. It's brutal.
I think even with lineless mooring you will still have ships carrying on board mooring lines for docking at ports that don't have the system or even just have them in case of a system failure for redundancies sake.
I don't see mooring lines ever being replaced. Sure, you can over engineer anything, but in the end ropes are predictable and very, very cost effective.
And frankly mooring lines actually have *safer* failure modes than anything I can imagine. Big wind comes in - do you *really* want your high-freeboard cruise liner to tear apart the quayside?
There was an incident here in the US a year or two back where a ship broke loose from its moorings and floated into a channel colliding with another moored ship causing lots of damage but fortunately no injuries. The ship was moored up and they were expecting strong winds from a storm so they had extra lines and even a person on the ground monitoring the lines during the heavy weather. According to the NTSB report the captain and crew did everything correctly but the one thing they couldn't have known was that one of the bollards would fail, which when it did it created the cascade effect of failing lines and the ship was loose in a matter of seconds.
@@ferretyluv Excellent question, the NTSB doesn't work to find fault pre se, but they couldn't deny that the bollard failed. The facility worked with the NTSB to realize that while they changed hands over the decades there was no maintenance (it was over 70 years old) and the NTSB realized that there's no agency responsible in the US for making sure Bollards are fit to hold their posted rating..
@@ferretyluv you'd think, but with 50 states it all just fell through the cracks (according to the NTSB) because no one ever thought a bollard would "go bad". Plus, shouldn't the Coast Guard be in charge of that?... Everyone thought... But they weren't. They did however step up and take responsibility because they have cross jurisdictional enforcement ability. Once again why a Federal authority works in this case.
I have been hit by the back end of a slipping spring line on a smaller cargo ship before. I was lucky it hit the back of my legs, swiping me off my feet and on my back. The ship was one that only takes 2250 tons of cargo, so not too much force, but it still left me with a serious bruise for several weeks. But yeah a slipping or snapping line is absolutely deadly
@@Failure_Is_An_Optionthey're deadly because in many situations they hit with 10x the amount of force needed to decapitate you... He didn't say that the one that hit him was deadly
Non-newtonian ropes! At 3:55, to prevent snapback while keeping elasticity, we need ropes which retract a lot, but slowly. That’s what non-newtonian liquids to, so they need to make that into ropes ;)
Excellent video again, thanks. In a former live I was involved in mooring solutions (all sorts of fenders, bollards, cleats, capstans, quick release mooring hooks, etc). The berthing of a large vessel is incredibly complex. Quay or jetty design plays a role, fender and bollard selection, vessel characteristics, etc, etc. The PIANC offers all sorts of recommendations for a proper designed berthing system. Mooring ropes are still the best universal solution: they offer ways to deal with dynamic loads, they distribute the loads to parts of the vessel that are designed to carry those loads. Under extreme conditions, they prevent damaging the vessel by failing. Other systems, such as suction berthing systems have a big downside: they apply the load to a part of the vessel that is not designed to handle that load, unless the vessel is adapated for that specific berth. Such berthing systems therefor will not help in case of extreme situations, as that may result in severe damage to the vessel. Sometimes, it is just hard to improve a thousand year old solution, because it is probably the best solution to start with.
Really enjoyed this one. I cross the Irish sea 8 times a month for work and it never ceases to amaze me how they can deploy and rewind the lines in the most unforgiving weather. Forgive my terminology ignorance I am a freight driver. The ropes are good to allow a small bit of stretch so when on a Ro-pax it can all stretch or relax. In Holyhead they have large buffers alongside. I always thought some electromagnets could be used to hold a ship in place I suppose a length of rope is cheap and versatile and doesn't require
We call the big black things fenders! And the actual long platform&supports that stretch out between the two ferries are called dolphins! Up on the Cairnryan Belfast route we use hydraulic powered clamps on shoreside to help hold the ships in place! Meaning in normal weather we may only have to have 1 line out each end!
Also I suppose, that Ropes from Nylon or HMW-PE are cheaper to massproduce and given the corrosive environment in ports and harbours still just cheaper than some highly advanced electro-mechanical device :)
We were on the Queen Mary 2 this summer when she snapped her lines, resulting in losing 3 gangways and almost hitting another ship. Thankfully no injuries or damage, and the crew did a fantastic job in what I'm sure was a difficult situation.
During the flood in Portland in 1996, I was working a security job at the docks. The ship I was assigned to was an old oil tanker that had been there for a long while. That flood brought it up out of the mud and the mooring ropes were tight as piano wires. No one was allowed anywhere near the ship until the waters eased up. I’ll never forget the way the ropes look and the gangplank all torn apart.
I was there for that flood too. I saw the horseshoe falls at Oregon City go flat! And I saw pieces of docks with 3 or 4 pleasure boats still attached float down the Willamette. But the most heroic thing I saw was 2 Moss tugboats pushing against the current to hold the Steel Bridge on its footings (that's the main rail bridge in Portland).
I started watching this channel when it only had 106 subs and im proud to say its one of the things that inspired m to taking engineering im now on my third year, thenk you for what you do❤
I was on a Frigate where the flight deck is also where a lot of the aft line handling occurs. Had wicked bad snap back where the rope end flew all the way into the hanger bay. Luckily no one was hurt and nothing damaged. Same ship was tied up, but in a spot where it could be hit by full seas and weather. Ship was galloping so bad she snapped her forward lines, and they ended up cutting the aft and getting underway without a tug and just went right into the sea...... leaving quite a few of us on shore. Lucky I was Air Det and we were working on our aircraft off ship.... so we were stuck there for nearly a week extra.
The latter part of the video with "Autodocker extreme" did remind me of something from the fictional universe. Towards the end of the game Fallout 2, you ride an oil tanker out to an oil rig, this tanker was shown with a clamp that went into a hole in the ship and turned like a key to lock it when moored.
I always look at your simple and no-nonsense channel when I can. My elder son works on boats …. well ships really ….. and it is kind of reassuring mostly. Keep up the good work. 👍
Ropes from ships washing ashore were perfect for pulling stuck vehicles out on the beach I lived at but only if they were dynamic and not static ropes which you could tell by the weave. The dynamic ropes had a woven jacket or outer layer while the static ropes looked like three big ropes twisted around in a spiral like how rope at the hardware store looks. Helped many people over the years by pulling them out without charge as the towing companies charged a lot just to show up and I was already there.
Very interesting :) One thing you didn't mention is the the rise and fall of tide. This is less of an issue for small boats and yachts that tie up to floating pontoons but big ships moor against docksides and the tidal heights (many metres here in the UK) need to be taken into account.
I worked on a small cruise ship for a while, and we had hourly security patrols and part of those patrols was to check all mooring lines and adjust as needed. If major adjustments needed to be made, it was our responsibility to work with the mate (waking them up if necessary) to determine if firing up the engine was necessary to make adjustments.
On the tankers I worked there would be a deckwatch of three men with the occasional woman. One mate and two ABs or ordinary seamen. Part of the seaman's job is to adjust the lines as necessary both for the tides and for the loading and offloading which had a more immediate impact on line tension. If a line parted on your watch it was a failure on your part. Keeping the appropriate tension on all lines was something that needed to be adjusted usually every couple hours but it's the seaman's duty to monitor it during the entire watch while also doing cargo operations and making deck rounds looking for anything unusual.
Wightlink uses the MoorMaster automatic mooring system that is line-free on their routes in the Solent which sees some of the highest tidal differences in the UK.
Some of the inland ships in Europe now have poles they can lower down into the riverbed. They're an alternative to anchors more than mooring lines, but I've occasionally seen them being used for that as well.
Ropes have been the standard throughout recorded history. They are simple, cheap, reliable and easy to use. They are unlikely to be replaced, as their strength to weight ratio keeps going up.
@@jamese9283 Higher forces and less weight make extreme velocity. Energy is mass times velocity squared. That's why you get things like snapped steel cables slicing people in half - the mass is small but the velocity, and resulting energy, is extreme. High energy and small area makes for particularly gruesome injuries as well.
@@tsm688 Interesting points. However, have you considered that rope has a low density which may reduce its velocity in air after breaking. Rope is also very pliable and tends to deform after impact, spreading the force out. "High energy and small area makes for particularly gruesome injuries as well."Ropes can be braided with a hollow core, which could make them safer having larger area and being less dense.
@@jamese9283 I have considered. We have quite a bit of experience with what happens when a polymer rope breaks. Did you know tug of war is one of the most violent sports on earth? People are obsessed with having the world record biggest game of tug of war, and when the rope inevitably breaks, SAVAGE things happen. Degloving. Amputations of legs and feet. And novel injuries hitherto unknown to science caused by hypervelocity lashing -- internal organ bruises and the like. The better the rope, the more energy is in a small section, the more dangerous it gets. It's just physics.
3:50 i love how with JUST what you've said so far & basic math/logic i already knew this. "Yeah i'm just not gonna be near the front of the ship when those are deployed. sure a bit of math and logic would make half of it most likely safe but i am NOT taking that chance."
I remember, as a kid in the '50s, watching the mooring of the Ellerman's Wilson Line ships on which we travelled HullRotterdam. I was amazed that something as large as a ship could be controlled by such thin lines.
I was on the Harwich to Rotterdam ferry recently and watching them mooring up as we got back to Harwich. Again it was amazing to think something so large could be kept in place with such small ropes.
A few years ago I was cruising on the NCL Breakaway (or was it her twin the Getaway?) watching the docking procedures from the aft waterfront deck. We were in Costa Maya which can be very windy and the ship was being pounded into the pier, as they taught the lines they started snapping. Within seconds the captain had the lines dropped and we sailed away skipping the port. Seeing the lines snap was quite impressive.
during an excersise "post bag transfer" (I was on a minehunter) the NCO ordered everyone to leave the aft because situation turned dangerous. we didn`t have "danger zones" but only "safe zones" that were well away of the area in another situation were I was on the bow crew the NCO ordered the same thing during mooring Steel can be replaced, limbs not
When I worked on tankers (600 feet) our standard set up was two headlines or "bowlines" one line on the breast off the morring deck, four springlines (two forward and two aft) two offshore sternlines, and one bite on the breast of the stern. The springlines were approx 1.5 inch greased steel cable. The lines were woven polyester of approximately 4-5 inches. Polyester floats well which is another benefit since the lines weigh a lot and, when released from the dock, they don't drag in the mud on the bottom. One of the first things we learned is never put your head above the bullworks when docking lest it be taken off if a line parts. Tankers dock in slips a lot so the bow lines are often used to control or stop the backward motion and fine tune the discharge header to the refinery headers. That would require a few turns on both bits and the mate to call out when the seaman needed to add a little slack. The tentiom on those lines was palpable. Good stuff! Your work brings back memories.
Always enjoy these animations and videos! Personally, I want to see a velcro hull. The sound of it disconnecting will be soooo good. Some examples of "Sticky" mooring systems include Remora Hiload and Friede & Goldman BargeRack. At the end of the day, though, ropes are still universally compatible (with enough bollards and length), and the cheapest option (other than intentionally grounding at low tide, which has other issues!).
Super interesting. I sail a small boat and like with the big-boys, we have different lines for different purposes. Mostly the issue is if the line is needing to take up some load, i.e., be springy, or not. Mooring lines and anchor lines need to be springy but they can break, whereas running rigging, i.e., sail control lines, should not be springy. It is in these that Dyneema is showing up as a core material. Dyneema is also showing up for use in the winches in off-road vehicles, replacing steel cable for exactly the reason pointed out in the video; when it fails Dyneema doesn't unload whip around like a steel cable could.
In my experience with steel cable mooring lines on large vessels, they’re actually a bit safer and more predictable then soft lines. They USUALLY don’t snap back as bad, 9/10 times they fall to the ground right where they break but I have seen them snap back before. Very dangerous stuff still.
Interestingly. There had been a storm here in Denmark around a week ago. From the news media, I read that one company that was controlling the smaller ferries between the islands effected by the storm and increasing water, had to leave the port and ferry dock as to in a sense, ride out the storm on the open sea
I had to do that with my 32ft sailboat that I was waiting to sail home to the home port. Early in morning I saw on weather forecast that there would be strong wind so I had to in a hurry drive the 45min to where the sailboat was in a bad spot because no other places in that harbor was available. When I arrived the wind had started to increase boat was already jumping up and down tugging on the lines and one of the rope eyes on the boat made of cast metal had already broken. In strong wind I had to maneuver to the other side of harbor to fill diesel for the drive (no sailing in that wind specially alone...). I was barely able to get away from the dock after filling fuel because the wind kept me pinned to the dock. But I made it out and while I was heading out on the way home I met the rescue boat, they must have been thinking I was crazy going out in that strong wind 15ms with stronger gusts. The ride home for engine went ok and it had no problem going against the wind and large waves thank to having a powerful engine :) I was home in the afternoon and in that harbor it was sheltered from both the wind and waves.
Fascinating, especially the info about modern docking magnets and such. I've always been curious about the ropes used by big ships because the ropes can be so comically huge.
I have seen a steel wire rope snap and come back at a shipmate ,lucky for him it hit the deck a few feet behind him . I had been the one putting the two wire spring line out my duty at harbour stations on that ship in the RN
Something else to consider is the local tide height change. With no tide change like in a lake, you don't have to lead your lines much. However, some places have huge tide swings that require very long leads to prevent your lines parting.
Interesting video and very familiar subject to me - when I was very young my uncle (up to that point a career Merchant navy officer) had one of his legs smashed by a line which snapped unexpectedly, thankfully all sorted out but it ended his career at sea having spent 6 months with his leg pinned.
Many years ago one of the company ships where I was employed had a nylon mooring line part and take the leg off one of the seaman tending lines. They only good that came out of the accident was that we soon after had our mooring lines replaced with non snapback synthetic lines.
I’m a Paramedic on the East coast in the USA and we have a large cargo ship port in my area. One of my calls was for a worker on the mooring deck that had their leg snapped in 2 after a mooring rope snapped as they were pulling tension on it. The force in those ropes is insane.
Great video. just one more thing to add is that's why it's very important to set BHC (brake holding capacity) is about 65% of MBL (minimum braking load) to slip brake before mooring line broken.
We had a vacuum mooring system on piers of our little ferry, but since someone drove off without it being disconnected and the replacement suction plate costs like 100k$ and would've to be shipped from Italy along with the technicians... Cheaper was to eventually sell the whole thing and rely on Shottels (we are electric ferry and are charging every 25 minutes anyway) If the weather would be so bad that it wouldn't suffice, we wouldn't be on that side of the fjord anyway but in the harbour moored with lines out of route. Still it was a pretty fascinating and in a way simple solution. Westill have enough issues with self connecting giant charging plug having to operate properly and find its way in even in sideways snowstorm that covers the optical lead elements. That eventually requires highly competent crew member (loudly complaining chief engineer) to clean them with specialized tool (actual broom handle wrapped with a piece of soft foam and rags)
Hawsers (mooring lines) are just more practical. They allow you a greater degree of freedom with how you berth or nest ships, and they're easy to store - not to mention how much cheaper it is for poorer nations to place bollards on jetties. Regarding tensile strength, on my ship we tend to double up all lines as standard practice, but will often triple them when we expect heavy weather. You can also add hurricane hawsers, the ends of which are made from steel cable to prevent abrasion from the fairlead.
Plus hawsers work even if there’s no power. Imagine the chaos if a storm takes out a power line and suddenly every ship in the harbor is free to move with the wind.
I worked on Great Lakes ships back in the late 70's when the only 'rope' was a 3 inch nylon rope that ran out the bow. The other lines were steel cable. As described in the video the one one on one was most common.
Nice video, but i kinda feel like the autotension features, and antisnap breaks coulda been mentioned as well, as they are very common nowadays.. (autotension being with the motor engaged set to tightwn or slack the line dependion on the tension and break, being motor disengaged line on break, but the break being designed to allow for some slipage before a critical load)
Auto-tension and similar are banned / no allowed at many ports especially those with strong tides. Last thing you want is you winch paying all your lines out whilst the tide is running.
@djcwilso mm no, it is not, we use it all the time, in Europe, asia, the US, iwe yet to come across a port where it is not allowed, however useing it does not meen we don't still have to tend the mooring lines regularly, useualy they are chekked on at least once an hour. And adjusted of needed, thus is usualy to insure the tension drum is not emptied if the lines get slacked, or overlapped if they get tightened
AI'm guessing you aren't sailing on bulk carriers? As most of the ports in the UK do not allow it. In fact I have copies of terminal regulations explicitly stating such. @@magnushindborg
@djcwilso ah, yea I can't say what are the rules for bulks, i sail containers only :) so the difference might be with that, also I haven't called a UK port in a LONG time, so I can't say for sure if it's a UK rule for other types, I will ask my buddy who sails ro-ro and ro-pax if they can do autotension in the UK
I'd like to point out how, if you were to mention "rope technology has improved" in a casual conversation, people might think you were making it up, but it is absolutely a real thing.
All true, but at 03:35 we are not supposed to secure the rope on the wrapping drum :) Also HMPE/Dyneema/Spectra(etc) are expensive... so choice is often polypropylene
I do remember putting the ropes inside that particular ship you mentioned. When that ship came back again, the people who did the mooring said that the ropes felt heavier than before. Funny story was the technical officers, one of the general managers and suppliers were having an argument on where to store those ropes. We brought them in and out of the ship a few times🤣🤣
The simple solution is to have a clutch system on the windlass and then an auto slack takeup so when the wind lets up it pulls the ship back to its berth.
I work at a harbour and board ships regularly. The most terrifying part of the work is not climbing the rope ladder, but going pass the mooring deck when we need to. There has never been an case of broken mooring lines in the last 3 years I've worked here, but the aftermath of a snapping line from the safety videos still a bit terrifying in my mind.
The problem with shore-side high-tech devices is that they're only available in high-tech ports. I wonder if a system where the ship monitored the tension on the ropes and tightened up the other ropes when one is above average tension would be feasible; it would still be a problem in the rarer 2:40 situation, but help in the more common 2:55 case, I think?
Back in '86 I was stationed to a tender at Sub Base SD. Anyway, I got there about the same time as the ARDM-5 Arco (floating drydock). It was brand new and I could be wrong but I believe it used clamping technology to secure to the pier. I also believe they had a tough time getting it to work properly. The idea was to give it a smoother ride going up and down while a submarine was aboard. I could be completely wrong, it was a long time ago.
A vacuum or electromagnet would require constant power and a bunch of runaway ships during a blackout is the last thing a port needs. Perhaps we will have ropes with different properties at different tension levels such that there's plenty stretch under acceptable loads but at the failure point they'll just fall limp.
They do not require constant power. The vacuum in Auto-mooring devices can hold for quite some while. And there are always backup generators in case of an outage. But if the generators also fail, we will have plenty of time to moor using normal mooring lines.
I love the parting comment "at some point I'm sure we'll find something better" because it seems like it could have been said decades if not centuries ago.
I have been on a few ferries that dont use ropes for docking. In that case, a steel ring on land got extended over a bollard on the ship with a two axis hydraulic rig. Pretty fascinating to watch, but of course, thats not a very universal system. The dock was made to fit the ferries. Its also made to save on personnel for regular docking maneuvers (about 1 ship every 30-45 minutes coming in) Its still a cool system.
Naah. Ropes won't be replaced anytime soon if ever. That "weakness" is their strength. Their ability to give under stress prevents greater damage being done in an unexpected event such as those that heavy waves and unexpected wind gusts can create. Suction would never work for the same reason you can't get suction cups to stay stuck after the fourth or fifth use...and that's a small area. Magnets can be very strong but then you are still faced with the issue of a more limited range of motion and give than you get from rope. You want rope made out of material with a bit of elasticity combined with strength. While that may pose serious injury risks if it snaps, the likelihood of that happening and causing worse damage is far less than with other mooring systems. BTW, I've seen what a rope looks like after it snaps and it no longer looks like a rope. "Rat's nest" is the term that comes to mind. ;)
Some years ago, all the locks in the Welland Canal were fitted with "docking devices" that raised and lowered with the ship. This subject would make an interesting video. It is called CAVOTEC "Moor Master" hands-free mooring ("HFM") suction-lift automated mooring system.
I'm wondering whether there are sensors that measure the forces on each line and give you an idea of a) whether lines have unevenly distributed forces and b) a line is close to breaking.
I'm obviously not a sailor, but those "auto-dock" things just seem like exactly the kind of thing you'd see on a bad kickstarter. The ones talking themselves up as being the [thing] of the future and redefining ship mooring, etc. Do snapback injuries actually account for a lot of serious accidents? Saving lives is important, but harbors might not want expensive, complicated machines that require regular maintenance and technical skills to operate when ropes are about the simplest and easiest solution humans ever came up with.
Port supervisor in a port who uses a type of Automooring system here. The primary reason why we installed it is because of safety. The amount of workers needed for the mooring went from 3 to 1, shore side and 6 to 0 vessel side.
Then, there is the safety equipment issue. I recently read a news article about a member a of crew of the fast ferry that operate here in the Canary Islands. Apparently they were having some issues with the lines and one of them snapped and this crew member lost his entire arm and suffered brain trauma due to not wearing a safety helmet. The company did not provide him with a helmet and he was wearing a construction helmet that he had from his previous job... I still feel that maritime industry is never going to reach the safety standards of aviation.
are there systems that can dynamically modulate the line tension, either ship- or dock-side? Either to ensure even loading or perhaps provide artificial compliance: letting the winch act as a shock absorder so high modulus lines can be used, improving crew safety
Solution is simple. Lines under the water line. That way they snap in the water. Why do the lines have to be above the ship? Just because that's how it's always been
"Solution is simple. Lines under the water line". Well then, genius, tell us all about how that will work technically, and how to implement it. I really despise people like you, who think they are SO smart, and everyone else is so stupid to do things "how it's always been". It people like you, who are the PROBLEM of the world.
Standard practice for USHOU Bayport and Barbour's Cut container terminals is 5+3. Many vessel utilize auto tensioners, which generally give the longshoremen a hard time. I have found that one of our customers usually has the A.T. system at 50%, which gives the vessel far too much room to move and produce significant slack. Generally we'll ask the Captain to adjust for 70% if we anticipate high winds or high traffic (tankers passing by). All I know is, I've been on a vessel and on dock when those lines snap; you can feel the concussion in your chest even from 100meters away.
Great video - we were just on a cruise ship a few days ago - and had to stay in Cadiz quite a few hours longer due to strong winds - I thought it strange that they seemed to be running the bow thrusters quite a lot long after we had docked - and then even stranger later on when a couple of large tugs sat on the side of the ship for hours pushing it towards the mooring - but I did think it must be due to something like rope strength (and the P&O Britannia Palma problem) - your video came out at the perfect time to explain it. Google searching at the time didn't help much.
All those lines on the ship are very strong. Plus they do stretch a little bit. If they didn’t stretch between the wind and the tides etc. would definitely destroy the cleats on the docks or damaged the ship.
Would it be possible to have governours on the winches so that always the right length of rope is applied with the right amount of tension? Like auto-tightening?
Other than the common Manila Lines used on big ships, or Nylon Lines used on smaller boats, wire ropes are used as secondary mooring lines for more stability. Whatever a Captain and Boatswain decide to use
I'd have thought an easy solution is just to engineer the weakest link at the safest place. E.g. have the ship ropes be the strongest and attach those strong ropes to the mooring with short weaker ropes. then the weak ropes snap first, they're short, not a lot of of stored energy and fail somewhat safely. The energy in the bigger ship ropes should be tamed by their weight and the upward and shipward angle of their snap back.
i like the ropes that have a slightly longer internal rope, so when the main rope snaps its sort of guided safely by the internal one preventing whip motions, (then when the smaller rope brakes its got much less energy and is weighed down by the main rope)
Cool video and all, But when I traveled on P&O's Pride of Hull/Rotterdam, I have always wondered how they actually get the ropes from the ship to the shore. Can you explain that?
The main ropes have a much smaller gauge leader line with a weight on the end. This lets the deckhand toss that light leader to someone on the dock. Of course, the leader is not used in securing the ship - just the heavier main rope.
Got to watch the aftermath of a ship breaking free in a storm last December here in Portland. High winds out of the south, and the direction of the river at that point mean they were at an angle where the bow would catch that wind. Bow lines broke free and the ship pivoted out into the channel. Took most of the day and at least three tugs to get it moved back into proper position against the pier.
Ropes snapping is also why you should never participate in a tug of war record attempt. The rope snaps, whips around, and injures or kills a bunch of people almost every time.
Technology will fail. Moring lines not ropes work anytime. They dont require power or anything else to work. Also if you size your moring lines appropriately its almost impossible to break them. Especially if you are using multiple lines in unison. Usually when they break its because they are visibly worn and need replacement.
Ships can use one or two middle and in between the middle to the aft end anchor and one or two aft end anchors in the starboard side, and in port side if needed for extra stability in predicted strong winds at the port. They will be also useful in narrow channels, for stabilised steering. The extra anchors are highly useful for stabilising ship in a higher powered heat systems and higher intensity surface winds in narrow channels with busy traffic even without any engines on. One or two is written because, typically one is only usually seen, but another can be equipped for redundancy and for keeping steering, geometric axis of ship, as very highly stable, irrespective of the dynamic outside changes. Spacers can be fit , after the links are deployed electro magnetically to reduce tangling or one anchor can be used at a time.
In USCG boot camp they made us watch a navy video called "Synthetic Line Snapback!". The images of mannequins getting torn apart by line snapping back was awful. It almost made me paranoid rather than careful.
I would have liked som stats on reported cases. Also, you might have mentioned fenders and other cushioning against the pier. Still, quite interesting. 👍
Im seafarer myself and just yesterday finished annual course of training videos and tests. And damn man I'd love if they hired you to make those training videos, because 99% of them so boring and poorly made that its just torture to watch. Love your content, keep it going.
I have had the same thought, but with technology. I can watch youtube videos about technology and it's interesting to learn, then when I need to learn about it at work I get a 150 slide power point deck from some engineer I'm expected to read in excruciating detail. It's brutal.
Our best bet is supporting his work by donating to him!
Do you not enjoy the 90s elevator music and transitions?!
As a seafarer myself I double that ! Most training schools have poor quality teaching materials... This is actually very good !
Yall just in love with the sea? I live by the ocean and never go in or on boats.
What a connection yall have with people from the past
I think even with lineless mooring you will still have ships carrying on board mooring lines for docking at ports that don't have the system or even just have them in case of a system failure for redundancies sake.
Probably similar to sea charts; the longer you wait, the more the technoly evolves and the more ships will rely on the new technology
I don't see mooring lines ever being replaced. Sure, you can over engineer anything, but in the end ropes are predictable and very, very cost effective.
I thought vessels only use lines.
Coils of mooring line are also the best hammocks.
And frankly mooring lines actually have *safer* failure modes than anything I can imagine. Big wind comes in - do you *really* want your high-freeboard cruise liner to tear apart the quayside?
There was an incident here in the US a year or two back where a ship broke loose from its moorings and floated into a channel colliding with another moored ship causing lots of damage but fortunately no injuries. The ship was moored up and they were expecting strong winds from a storm so they had extra lines and even a person on the ground monitoring the lines during the heavy weather. According to the NTSB report the captain and crew did everything correctly but the one thing they couldn't have known was that one of the bollards would fail, which when it did it created the cascade effect of failing lines and the ship was loose in a matter of seconds.
So was the port at fault?
@@ferretyluv Excellent question, the NTSB doesn't work to find fault pre se, but they couldn't deny that the bollard failed. The facility worked with the NTSB to realize that while they changed hands over the decades there was no maintenance (it was over 70 years old) and the NTSB realized that there's no agency responsible in the US for making sure Bollards are fit to hold their posted rating..
@@douglasboyle6544 That’s insane! Wouldn’t that be up to whoever runs port authorities?
@@ferretyluv you'd think, but with 50 states it all just fell through the cracks (according to the NTSB) because no one ever thought a bollard would "go bad". Plus, shouldn't the Coast Guard be in charge of that?... Everyone thought... But they weren't. They did however step up and take responsibility because they have cross jurisdictional enforcement ability. Once again why a Federal authority works in this case.
I have been hit by the back end of a slipping spring line on a smaller cargo ship before. I was lucky it hit the back of my legs, swiping me off my feet and on my back. The ship was one that only takes 2250 tons of cargo, so not too much force, but it still left me with a serious bruise for several weeks. But yeah a slipping or snapping line is absolutely deadly
@@Failure_Is_An_Option Are you an idiot by any chance?
@@Failure_Is_An_Option There is a difference between being hit in the back of the legs verses being hit in the head or upper chest.
@@Failure_Is_An_Option people like you are why we need a dislike button for comments
@@Failure_Is_An_Optionyour point is? a gun is also deadly when aimed at the head, but most shots are survivable
@@Failure_Is_An_Optionthey're deadly because in many situations they hit with 10x the amount of force needed to decapitate you... He didn't say that the one that hit him was deadly
Non-newtonian ropes! At 3:55, to prevent snapback while keeping elasticity, we need ropes which retract a lot, but slowly. That’s what non-newtonian liquids to, so they need to make that into ropes ;)
Excellent video again, thanks. In a former live I was involved in mooring solutions (all sorts of fenders, bollards, cleats, capstans, quick release mooring hooks, etc). The berthing of a large vessel is incredibly complex. Quay or jetty design plays a role, fender and bollard selection, vessel characteristics, etc, etc. The PIANC offers all sorts of recommendations for a proper designed berthing system.
Mooring ropes are still the best universal solution: they offer ways to deal with dynamic loads, they distribute the loads to parts of the vessel that are designed to carry those loads. Under extreme conditions, they prevent damaging the vessel by failing.
Other systems, such as suction berthing systems have a big downside: they apply the load to a part of the vessel that is not designed to handle that load, unless the vessel is adapated for that specific berth. Such berthing systems therefor will not help in case of extreme situations, as that may result in severe damage to the vessel.
Sometimes, it is just hard to improve a thousand year old solution, because it is probably the best solution to start with.
Really enjoyed this one.
I cross the Irish sea 8 times a month for work and it never ceases to amaze me how they can deploy and rewind the lines in the most unforgiving weather. Forgive my terminology ignorance I am a freight driver. The ropes are good to allow a small bit of stretch so when on a Ro-pax it can all stretch or relax. In Holyhead they have large buffers alongside.
I always thought some electromagnets could be used to hold a ship in place
I suppose a length of rope is cheap and versatile and doesn't require
We call the big black things fenders! And the actual long platform&supports that stretch out between the two ferries are called dolphins! Up on the Cairnryan Belfast route we use hydraulic powered clamps on shoreside to help hold the ships in place! Meaning in normal weather we may only have to have 1 line out each end!
Also I suppose, that Ropes from Nylon or HMW-PE are cheaper to massproduce and given the corrosive environment in ports and harbours still just cheaper than some highly advanced electro-mechanical device :)
We were on the Queen Mary 2 this summer when she snapped her lines, resulting in losing 3 gangways and almost hitting another ship. Thankfully no injuries or damage, and the crew did a fantastic job in what I'm sure was a difficult situation.
During the flood in Portland in 1996, I was working a security job at the docks. The ship I was assigned to was an old oil tanker that had been there for a long while. That flood brought it up out of the mud and the mooring ropes were tight as piano wires. No one was allowed anywhere near the ship until the waters eased up. I’ll never forget the way the ropes look and the gangplank all torn apart.
I was there for that flood too. I saw the horseshoe falls at Oregon City go flat! And I saw pieces of docks with 3 or 4 pleasure boats still attached float down the Willamette. But the most heroic thing I saw was 2 Moss tugboats pushing against the current to hold the Steel Bridge on its footings (that's the main rail bridge in Portland).
I started watching this channel when it only had 106 subs and im proud to say its one of the things that inspired m to taking engineering im now on my third year, thenk you for what you do❤
Me watching his videos while resting in my cabin during off shift.
I was on a Frigate where the flight deck is also where a lot of the aft line handling occurs. Had wicked bad snap back where the rope end flew all the way into the hanger bay. Luckily no one was hurt and nothing damaged. Same ship was tied up, but in a spot where it could be hit by full seas and weather. Ship was galloping so bad she snapped her forward lines, and they ended up cutting the aft and getting underway without a tug and just went right into the sea...... leaving quite a few of us on shore. Lucky I was Air Det and we were working on our aircraft off ship.... so we were stuck there for nearly a week extra.
The latter part of the video with "Autodocker extreme" did remind me of something from the fictional universe.
Towards the end of the game Fallout 2, you ride an oil tanker out to an oil rig, this tanker was shown with a clamp that went into a hole in the ship and turned like a key to lock it when moored.
I always look at your simple and no-nonsense channel when I can. My elder son works on boats …. well ships really ….. and it is kind of reassuring mostly. Keep up the good work. 👍
Ropes from ships washing ashore were perfect for pulling stuck vehicles out on the beach I lived at but only if they were dynamic and not static ropes which you could tell by the weave. The dynamic ropes had a woven jacket or outer layer while the static ropes looked like three big ropes twisted around in a spiral like how rope at the hardware store looks. Helped many people over the years by pulling them out without charge as the towing companies charged a lot just to show up and I was already there.
Very interesting :) One thing you didn't mention is the the rise and fall of tide. This is less of an issue for small boats and yachts that tie up to floating pontoons but big ships moor against docksides and the tidal heights (many metres here in the UK) need to be taken into account.
I worked on a small cruise ship for a while, and we had hourly security patrols and part of those patrols was to check all mooring lines and adjust as needed. If major adjustments needed to be made, it was our responsibility to work with the mate (waking them up if necessary) to determine if firing up the engine was necessary to make adjustments.
@@jaygaymes I'm curious, did you have to report the result of then patrol, or just if adjustments were necessary?
Now that just makes me wonder how the hell ships are even able to moor in the bay of fundy.
On the tankers I worked there would be a deckwatch of three men with the occasional woman. One mate and two ABs or ordinary seamen. Part of the seaman's job is to adjust the lines as necessary both for the tides and for the loading and offloading which had a more immediate impact on line tension. If a line parted on your watch it was a failure on your part. Keeping the appropriate tension on all lines was something that needed to be adjusted usually every couple hours but it's the seaman's duty to monitor it during the entire watch while also doing cargo operations and making deck rounds looking for anything unusual.
Wightlink uses the MoorMaster automatic mooring system that is line-free on their routes in the Solent which sees some of the highest tidal differences in the UK.
Some of the inland ships in Europe now have poles they can lower down into the riverbed. They're an alternative to anchors more than mooring lines, but I've occasionally seen them being used for that as well.
Those are common on small fishing boats and kayaks in the US, there's a brand called power-pole.
They’re called spud poles, they’ve been used on European canals and rivers for many years
Inland ships? You mean small recreational fishing boats? 😅
@@user-sx4yu3nw4j more like 300+ foot freight barges and tankers.
I absolutely adore this channel. Learning all sorts of sea fearing things with my morning coffee is truly great.
Ropes have been the standard throughout recorded history. They are simple, cheap, reliable and easy to use. They are unlikely to be replaced, as their strength to weight ratio keeps going up.
The higher that ratio, the more dangerous they become.
@@tsm688 Please explain, as a heavy object moving at high speed is more dangerous than a lighter one.
@@jamese9283 Higher forces and less weight make extreme velocity. Energy is mass times velocity squared. That's why you get things like snapped steel cables slicing people in half - the mass is small but the velocity, and resulting energy, is extreme.
High energy and small area makes for particularly gruesome injuries as well.
@@tsm688 Interesting points. However, have you considered that rope has a low density which may reduce its velocity in air after breaking. Rope is also very pliable and tends to deform after impact, spreading the force out.
"High energy and small area makes for particularly gruesome injuries as well."Ropes can be braided with a hollow core, which could make them safer having larger area and being less dense.
@@jamese9283 I have considered. We have quite a bit of experience with what happens when a polymer rope breaks. Did you know tug of war is one of the most violent sports on earth?
People are obsessed with having the world record biggest game of tug of war, and when the rope inevitably breaks, SAVAGE things happen. Degloving. Amputations of legs and feet. And novel injuries hitherto unknown to science caused by hypervelocity lashing -- internal organ bruises and the like.
The better the rope, the more energy is in a small section, the more dangerous it gets. It's just physics.
3:50 i love how with JUST what you've said so far & basic math/logic i already knew this.
"Yeah i'm just not gonna be near the front of the ship when those are deployed. sure a bit of math and logic would make half of it most likely safe but i am NOT taking that chance."
Ropes, though old fashioned, are still the most flexible, universal solution.
Right you are, laddie (or lass.)
Exactly, they work with EVERY ship and ALL docks
@@CAPTJohn47 laddie, but it doesn't matter. Thanks!
@@jamesmurney1374 Yup!
I remember, as a kid in the '50s, watching the mooring of the Ellerman's Wilson Line ships on which we travelled HullRotterdam. I was amazed that something as large as a ship could be controlled by such thin lines.
I was on the Harwich to Rotterdam ferry recently and watching them mooring up as we got back to Harwich. Again it was amazing to think something so large could be kept in place with such small ropes.
A few years ago I was cruising on the NCL Breakaway (or was it her twin the Getaway?) watching the docking procedures from the aft waterfront deck. We were in Costa Maya which can be very windy and the ship was being pounded into the pier, as they taught the lines they started snapping. Within seconds the captain had the lines dropped and we sailed away skipping the port. Seeing the lines snap was quite impressive.
during an excersise "post bag transfer" (I was on a minehunter) the NCO ordered everyone to leave the aft because situation turned dangerous.
we didn`t have "danger zones" but only "safe zones" that were well away of the area
in another situation were I was on the bow crew the NCO ordered the same thing during mooring
Steel can be replaced, limbs not
When I worked on tankers (600 feet) our standard set up was two headlines or "bowlines" one line on the breast off the morring deck, four springlines (two forward and two aft) two offshore sternlines, and one bite on the breast of the stern. The springlines were approx 1.5 inch greased steel cable. The lines were woven polyester of approximately 4-5 inches. Polyester floats well which is another benefit since the lines weigh a lot and, when released from the dock, they don't drag in the mud on the bottom. One of the first things we learned is never put your head above the bullworks when docking lest it be taken off if a line parts. Tankers dock in slips a lot so the bow lines are often used to control or stop the backward motion and fine tune the discharge header to the refinery headers. That would require a few turns on both bits and the mate to call out when the seaman needed to add a little slack. The tentiom on those lines was palpable.
Good stuff! Your work brings back memories.
Always enjoy these animations and videos!
Personally, I want to see a velcro hull. The sound of it disconnecting will be soooo good.
Some examples of "Sticky" mooring systems include Remora Hiload and Friede & Goldman BargeRack. At the end of the day, though, ropes are still universally compatible (with enough bollards and length), and the cheapest option (other than intentionally grounding at low tide, which has other issues!).
What an interesting video. I never knew anything about this before, but you made it clear and simple.
I remember being on a cross channel ferry when one of the mooring lines snapped. It hit the side of the ship with a huge bang.
And that's it - just 5.08 mins later I have come away having learnt something new! Great content, clear explanations and animations. Well done friend!
Super interesting.
I sail a small boat and like with the big-boys, we have different lines for different purposes. Mostly the issue is if the line is needing to take up some load, i.e., be springy, or not.
Mooring lines and anchor lines need to be springy but they can break, whereas running rigging, i.e., sail control lines, should not be springy. It is in these that Dyneema is showing up as a core material.
Dyneema is also showing up for use in the winches in off-road vehicles, replacing steel cable for exactly the reason pointed out in the video; when it fails Dyneema doesn't unload whip around like a steel cable could.
In my experience with steel cable mooring lines on large vessels, they’re actually a bit safer and more predictable then soft lines. They USUALLY don’t snap back as bad, 9/10 times they fall to the ground right where they break but I have seen them snap back before. Very dangerous stuff still.
Interestingly. There had been a storm here in Denmark around a week ago. From the news media, I read that one company that was controlling the smaller ferries between the islands effected by the storm and increasing water, had to leave the port and ferry dock as to in a sense, ride out the storm on the open sea
I had to do that with my 32ft sailboat that I was waiting to sail home to the home port.
Early in morning I saw on weather forecast that there would be strong wind so I had to in a hurry drive the 45min to where the sailboat was in a bad spot because no other places in that harbor was available. When I arrived the wind had started to increase boat was already jumping up and down tugging on the lines and one of the rope eyes on the boat made of cast metal had already broken.
In strong wind I had to maneuver to the other side of harbor to fill diesel for the drive (no sailing in that wind specially alone...). I was barely able to get away from the dock after filling fuel because the wind kept me pinned to the dock. But I made it out and while I was heading out on the way home I met the rescue boat, they must have been thinking I was crazy going out in that strong wind 15ms with stronger gusts. The ride home for engine went ok and it had no problem going against the wind and large waves thank to having a powerful engine :) I was home in the afternoon and in that harbor it was sheltered from both the wind and waves.
Fascinating, especially the info about modern docking magnets and such. I've always been curious about the ropes used by big ships because the ropes can be so comically huge.
I have seen a steel wire rope snap and come back at a shipmate ,lucky for him it hit the deck a few feet behind him . I had been the one putting the two wire spring line out my duty at harbour stations on that ship in the RN
It’s actually for rats. They work in the kitchen. I watched a documentary about it
Something else to consider is the local tide height change. With no tide change like in a lake, you don't have to lead your lines much. However, some places have huge tide swings that require very long leads to prevent your lines parting.
Depends on the lake actually, the larger lakes to get tides.
Ropes on modern ships: because if it ain't broken don't fix it.
One of the highlights of my Friday night (GMT +10)
Interesting video and very familiar subject to me - when I was very young my uncle (up to that point a career Merchant navy officer) had one of his legs smashed by a line which snapped unexpectedly, thankfully all sorted out but it ended his career at sea having spent 6 months with his leg pinned.
Many years ago one of the company ships where I was employed had a nylon mooring line part and take the leg off one of the seaman tending lines. They only good that came out of the accident was that we soon after had our mooring lines replaced with non snapback synthetic lines.
I’m a Paramedic on the East coast in the USA and we have a large cargo ship port in my area. One of my calls was for a worker on the mooring deck that had their leg snapped in 2 after a mooring rope snapped as they were pulling tension on it. The force in those ropes is insane.
2:36 .. Don't know if the tern is still popular now, but we used to call the the zipper effect or just "Like a Zipper'
Great video, thanks for sharing it.
Great video. just one more thing to add is that's why it's very important to set BHC (brake holding capacity) is about 65% of MBL (minimum braking load) to slip brake before mooring line broken.
We had a vacuum mooring system on piers of our little ferry, but since someone drove off without it being disconnected and the replacement suction plate costs like 100k$ and would've to be shipped from Italy along with the technicians... Cheaper was to eventually sell the whole thing and rely on Shottels (we are electric ferry and are charging every 25 minutes anyway) If the weather would be so bad that it wouldn't suffice, we wouldn't be on that side of the fjord anyway but in the harbour moored with lines out of route. Still it was a pretty fascinating and in a way simple solution. Westill have enough issues with self connecting giant charging plug having to operate properly and find its way in even in sideways snowstorm that covers the optical lead elements. That eventually requires highly competent crew member (loudly complaining chief engineer) to clean them with specialized tool (actual broom handle wrapped with a piece of soft foam and rags)
Hawsers (mooring lines) are just more practical. They allow you a greater degree of freedom with how you berth or nest ships, and they're easy to store - not to mention how much cheaper it is for poorer nations to place bollards on jetties. Regarding tensile strength, on my ship we tend to double up all lines as standard practice, but will often triple them when we expect heavy weather. You can also add hurricane hawsers, the ends of which are made from steel cable to prevent abrasion from the fairlead.
Plus hawsers work even if there’s no power. Imagine the chaos if a storm takes out a power line and suddenly every ship in the harbor is free to move with the wind.
I worked on Great Lakes ships back in the late 70's when the only 'rope' was a 3 inch nylon rope that ran out the bow. The other lines were steel cable. As described in the video the one one on one was most common.
Nice video, but i kinda feel like the autotension features, and antisnap breaks coulda been mentioned as well, as they are very common nowadays.. (autotension being with the motor engaged set to tightwn or slack the line dependion on the tension and break, being motor disengaged line on break, but the break being designed to allow for some slipage before a critical load)
Auto-tension and similar are banned / no allowed at many ports especially those with strong tides. Last thing you want is you winch paying all your lines out whilst the tide is running.
@djcwilso mm no, it is not, we use it all the time, in Europe, asia, the US, iwe yet to come across a port where it is not allowed, however useing it does not meen we don't still have to tend the mooring lines regularly, useualy they are chekked on at least once an hour. And adjusted of needed, thus is usualy to insure the tension drum is not emptied if the lines get slacked, or overlapped if they get tightened
AI'm guessing you aren't sailing on bulk carriers? As most of the ports in the UK do not allow it. In fact I have copies of terminal regulations explicitly stating such. @@magnushindborg
@djcwilso ah, yea I can't say what are the rules for bulks, i sail containers only :) so the difference might be with that, also I haven't called a UK port in a LONG time, so I can't say for sure if it's a UK rule for other types, I will ask my buddy who sails ro-ro and ro-pax if they can do autotension in the UK
I'd like to point out how, if you were to mention "rope technology has improved" in a casual conversation, people might think you were making it up, but it is absolutely a real thing.
I don't think so?
All technologies have improved in the last 500 years.
3:54 The vast majority or ropes reduce in strength whe wet, one exception is Polypropylene ropes which are actually stronger wet than dry
All true, but at 03:35 we are not supposed to secure the rope on the wrapping drum :) Also HMPE/Dyneema/Spectra(etc) are expensive... so choice is often polypropylene
I do remember putting the ropes inside that particular ship you mentioned. When that ship came back again, the people who did the mooring said that the ropes felt heavier than before.
Funny story was the technical officers, one of the general managers and suppliers were having an argument on where to store those ropes. We brought them in and out of the ship a few times🤣🤣
Great information for me. Starting tomorrow as captain of a cruise ship.
Your animation is awesome mate. The time it must take. Really awesome work !!!!
For the same reason, in bye gone years, coal miner’s preferred to use pine/wooden pit props. When a steel pit prop fails it gives no warning.
Whoa. Dynema lines for putting up a backpacking tent cost a lot of money. I can't imagine what a Dynema rope that can hold a ship would cost per foot!
The simple solution is to have a clutch system on the windlass and then an auto slack takeup so when the wind lets up it pulls the ship back to its berth.
They do. They're called unlicensed seamen (ie not the officers)
I work at a harbour and board ships regularly. The most terrifying part of the work is not climbing the rope ladder, but going pass the mooring deck when we need to. There has never been an case of broken mooring lines in the last 3 years I've worked here, but the aftermath of a snapping line from the safety videos still a bit terrifying in my mind.
Lmao I love your content! Such "simple" questions that are really interesting. You add so much value to my life. Cheers mate
I just adore your videos. Thank you very much for your work
The problem with shore-side high-tech devices is that they're only available in high-tech ports. I wonder if a system where the ship monitored the tension on the ropes and tightened up the other ropes when one is above average tension would be feasible; it would still be a problem in the rarer 2:40 situation, but help in the more common 2:55 case, I think?
Mind blown. I thought it was so the rats would have a gangway.
0:14 I'm pretty sure that is not a fictional scenario.
I was working on the wharf with a couple of cruise ships one day. The second ship kept winching the rope until it snapped, very loud and dangerous.
Back in '86 I was stationed to a tender at Sub Base SD. Anyway, I got there about the same time as the ARDM-5 Arco (floating drydock). It was brand new and I could be wrong but I believe it used clamping technology to secure to the pier. I also believe they had a tough time getting it to work properly. The idea was to give it a smoother ride going up and down while a submarine was aboard. I could be completely wrong, it was a long time ago.
A vacuum or electromagnet would require constant power and a bunch of runaway ships during a blackout is the last thing a port needs. Perhaps we will have ropes with different properties at different tension levels such that there's plenty stretch under acceptable loads but at the failure point they'll just fall limp.
They do not require constant power. The vacuum in Auto-mooring devices can hold for quite some while. And there are always backup generators in case of an outage.
But if the generators also fail, we will have plenty of time to moor using normal mooring lines.
I love the parting comment "at some point I'm sure we'll find something better" because it seems like it could have been said decades if not centuries ago.
An incredibly nerdy, albeit informative and interesting, video.
This is how i broke my hand saving my head from a snapped line.
I have been on a few ferries that dont use ropes for docking.
In that case, a steel ring on land got extended over a bollard on the ship with a two axis hydraulic rig.
Pretty fascinating to watch, but of course, thats not a very universal system.
The dock was made to fit the ferries.
Its also made to save on personnel for regular docking maneuvers (about 1 ship every 30-45 minutes coming in)
Its still a cool system.
Naah. Ropes won't be replaced anytime soon if ever. That "weakness" is their strength. Their ability to give under stress prevents greater damage being done in an unexpected event such as those that heavy waves and unexpected wind gusts can create.
Suction would never work for the same reason you can't get suction cups to stay stuck after the fourth or fifth use...and that's a small area. Magnets can be very strong but then you are still faced with the issue of a more limited range of motion and give than you get from rope. You want rope made out of material with a bit of elasticity combined with strength. While that may pose serious injury risks if it snaps, the likelihood of that happening and causing worse damage is far less than with other mooring systems.
BTW, I've seen what a rope looks like after it snaps and it no longer looks like a rope. "Rat's nest" is the term that comes to mind. ;)
Can you do a video on the difference between wharves, quays, piers, and docks?
Ohhh so that's what he was saying!
I only always heard "pier" and "dock".
Are "wharve" and "quay" from the UK?
@@saurisco338 Wharf is the singular. Both wharf and quay (pronounced “key”) are found all around the world.
@@ferretyluv what I meant is: are those UK slang?
@@saurisco338 Nope, not slang at all. These are the technical terms.
Some years ago, all the locks in the Welland Canal were fitted with "docking devices" that raised and lowered with the ship. This subject would make an interesting video. It is called CAVOTEC "Moor Master" hands-free mooring ("HFM") suction-lift automated mooring system.
I'm wondering whether there are sensors that measure the forces on each line and give you an idea of a) whether lines have unevenly distributed forces and b) a line is close to breaking.
There are sensors to measure the loads on mooring equipment but they are pretty expensive
I'm obviously not a sailor, but those "auto-dock" things just seem like exactly the kind of thing you'd see on a bad kickstarter. The ones talking themselves up as being the [thing] of the future and redefining ship mooring, etc.
Do snapback injuries actually account for a lot of serious accidents? Saving lives is important, but harbors might not want expensive, complicated machines that require regular maintenance and technical skills to operate when ropes are about the simplest and easiest solution humans ever came up with.
Port supervisor in a port who uses a type of Automooring system here.
The primary reason why we installed it is because of safety. The amount of workers needed for the mooring went from 3 to 1, shore side and 6 to 0 vessel side.
Then, there is the safety equipment issue. I recently read a news article about a member a of crew of the fast ferry that operate here in the Canary Islands. Apparently they were having some issues with the lines and one of them snapped and this crew member lost his entire arm and suffered brain trauma due to not wearing a safety helmet. The company did not provide him with a helmet and he was wearing a construction helmet that he had from his previous job...
I still feel that maritime industry is never going to reach the safety standards of aviation.
are there systems that can dynamically modulate the line tension, either ship- or dock-side? Either to ensure even loading or perhaps provide artificial compliance: letting the winch act as a shock absorder so high modulus lines can be used, improving crew safety
Giant mecha arms would be so "handy". grab the dock, lift cargo and backup propulsion with paddling
Solution is simple. Lines under the water line. That way they snap in the water. Why do the lines have to be above the ship? Just because that's how it's always been
"Solution is simple. Lines under the water line". Well then, genius, tell us all about how that will work technically, and how to implement it.
I really despise people like you, who think they are SO smart, and everyone else is so stupid to do things "how it's always been".
It people like you, who are the PROBLEM of the world.
Standard practice for USHOU Bayport and Barbour's Cut container terminals is 5+3.
Many vessel utilize auto tensioners, which generally give the longshoremen a hard time. I have found that one of our customers usually has the A.T. system at 50%, which gives the vessel far too much room to move and produce significant slack. Generally we'll ask the Captain to adjust for 70% if we anticipate high winds or high traffic (tankers passing by).
All I know is, I've been on a vessel and on dock when those lines snap; you can feel the concussion in your chest even from 100meters away.
MAIB report on the Zarga incident worth a read if you haven’t already.
Great video - we were just on a cruise ship a few days ago - and had to stay in Cadiz quite a few hours longer due to strong winds - I thought it strange that they seemed to be running the bow thrusters quite a lot long after we had docked - and then even stranger later on when a couple of large tugs sat on the side of the ship for hours pushing it towards the mooring - but I did think it must be due to something like rope strength (and the P&O Britannia Palma problem) - your video came out at the perfect time to explain it. Google searching at the time didn't help much.
All those lines on the ship are very strong. Plus they do stretch a little bit. If they didn’t stretch between the wind and the tides etc. would definitely destroy the cleats on the docks or damaged the ship.
Would it be possible to have governours on the winches so that always the right length of rope is applied with the right amount of tension? Like auto-tightening?
Other than the common Manila Lines used on big ships, or Nylon Lines used on smaller boats, wire ropes are used as secondary mooring lines for more stability. Whatever a Captain and Boatswain decide to use
I'd have thought an easy solution is just to engineer the weakest link at the safest place. E.g. have the ship ropes be the strongest and attach those strong ropes to the mooring with short weaker ropes. then the weak ropes snap first, they're short, not a lot of of stored energy and fail somewhat safely. The energy in the bigger ship ropes should be tamed by their weight and the upward and shipward angle of their snap back.
i like the ropes that have a slightly longer internal rope, so when the main rope snaps its sort of guided safely by the internal one preventing whip motions, (then when the smaller rope brakes its got much less energy and is weighed down by the main rope)
Cool video and all, But when I traveled on P&O's Pride of Hull/Rotterdam, I have always wondered how they actually get the ropes from the ship to the shore. Can you explain that?
The main ropes have a much smaller gauge leader line with a weight on the end. This lets the deckhand toss that light leader to someone on the dock. Of course, the leader is not used in securing the ship - just the heavier main rope.
Cheers....@@chasbodaniels1744
You tie a heaving line with a knot or a rubber ball on the end to the mooring line which you then throw ashore.
When the weather gets REALLY bad the docks in a shipyard use about a six inch steel cable. I've only seen this done once however.
Got to watch the aftermath of a ship breaking free in a storm last December here in Portland. High winds out of the south, and the direction of the river at that point mean they were at an angle where the bow would catch that wind. Bow lines broke free and the ship pivoted out into the channel. Took most of the day and at least three tugs to get it moved back into proper position against the pier.
In the ship I once worked on we used Pistons that locked into exterior holes on the ship.
Ropes snapping is also why you should never participate in a tug of war record attempt. The rope snaps, whips around, and injures or kills a bunch of people almost every time.
Technology will fail. Moring lines not ropes work anytime. They dont require power or anything else to work. Also if you size your moring lines appropriately its almost impossible to break them. Especially if you are using multiple lines in unison. Usually when they break its because they are visibly worn and need replacement.
Tension mooring winch, anyone? They've been around for decades.
In the US Spectra is the brand better known rather than Dyneema.
Ships can use one or two middle and in between the middle to the aft end anchor and one or two aft end anchors in the starboard side, and in port side if needed for extra stability in predicted strong winds at the port. They will be also useful in narrow channels, for stabilised steering. The extra anchors are highly useful for stabilising ship in a higher powered heat systems and higher intensity surface winds in narrow channels with busy traffic even without any engines on. One or two is written because, typically one is only usually seen, but another can be equipped for redundancy and for keeping steering, geometric axis of ship, as very highly stable, irrespective of the dynamic outside changes. Spacers can be fit , after the links are deployed electro magnetically to reduce tangling or one anchor can be used at a time.
I work as a linesman in a harbour and i have seen the most random things used to moore ships. From normal nylon ropes to litteral chains
Nice to meet another linesman, Greetings from Antwerp
In USCG boot camp they made us watch a navy video called "Synthetic Line Snapback!". The images of mannequins getting torn apart by line snapping back was awful. It almost made me paranoid rather than careful.
I would have liked som stats on reported cases.
Also, you might have mentioned fenders and other cushioning against the pier.
Still, quite interesting. 👍
Also for the Crew on the Pier who has to haul the Lines out of the water its kinda hard depending on ship size.
All hail the algorithm 👍👍👍
In marine parlance, they are not "ropes" but "lines".